Can't think of a better place to post finally pictures added

I have been missing for a while, and I am almost ashamed to say why.
I had my first accidental discharge, 3 weeks ago, into and through my right index finger!!!
I have always preached firearms safety to anyone I ever introduced to any firearm, be it a little .22 revolver, or a .58 caliber musket, the first thing they saw from me was to clear the action and insure there was nothing capable of doing any damage to myself or others. I would cringe if there was even the slightest presence of danger involved.

"How on earth did you do it, Doc?" You might ask.
I was attempting to remove the cylinder from my mini-revolver, I had it in my left hand, I was pulling the hammer back to set it on halfway, to enable the hand to clear and let the cylinder come out, with my left thumb, there apparently was still a little oil from another previously cleaned revolver, on my thumb as the hammer fell forward before I got it to full half-cock, BANG!!! My guess, as I was driving to the hospital emergency room, was that primer must have been AWFULLY sensitive to go off with less than 1/2 of the travel and still it went off.
I can't explain why that popped into my head, but it did.
The round couldn't have traveled more than 2 inches before it entered just below the first joint of my finger, leaving an amazing amount of gsr on the point of entry, the exit wound was just above the knuckle on the back of my hand, through the bone.
I only tell you all this to let you understand how much damage the .22 lr hollow point can do in real life through real tissue. The wound of entrance was, as all of us would imagine, very small, almost imperceivable, except for the bleeding, however, after penetrating through the small amount of soft tissue and going through the bone, without displacing the bone, to speak of, the exit wound was approximately 2/3 the size of a dime, this was fairly significant in that there was maybe 4 inches total travel from barrel to exit wound.
Moral of the story BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL handling these little guys. Don't become a statistic!!!!!!!!

3 1/2 hours from injury I was in the recovery room, 12 hours after the injury I was back home, but the injury, resultant surgery, and the total stupid, will leave their scars for the rest of my life.


Doc

 

Doc,

Thanks for sharing this with all of us. The more people can learn from fewer accidents, the better.

Best wishes for the recovery!

 

Well Doc...hope you heal up soon, sorry about the AD...

 

I agree with what everyone has said so far, and only offer thanks that you are now well, and on the mend. Dont let it spoil things for you, though. Chin up!

 

Yeah, like everybody else said, heal up quick. Hopefully you come away from this with more than scars to show for it.

I've caught myself a couple of times, with barrel pointed at some part of my body. It only takes and instant to change, or end a life... forever. I'm glad it was only a relatively minor injury.

I'd hate to see another .40, or 9mm A/D through the finger...

Oh, and I almost forgot...

 

I appreciate all of the well wishes, it warms my heart, but as most of you probably know that have read many of my posts, this was only put up to remind all of us, myself especially, to always, always, ALWAYS, be sure of the potential that can result from any firearm, or as far as that goes, any possible injurious items, knives, sources of flame, black-powder, smokeless powder, for those of us seeking to develop those skills, this list can be added to by all of us. Avoid any injury by keeping the best focus you can on what you are doing.
I happened to be capable of driving myself to the hospital, had I been working on one of my other firearms, and had the same angle of wound happen with say a .357 or a .45 LC, it very easily could have been fatal, as I've seen entirely too many times.

thanks again for the well wishes, but to really make this mishap have value, don't let this happen to you, many of us are so hard-headed that we can't learn from any teacher but self-experience, in this I would like to see my experience being the one to stop any further bad things with firearms and not the self-learned and fatal results. Morbid, maybe, but a word to the wise...........

Doc